the government thought its u-turn three days ago on welfare reforms was going to be enough - but could tomorrow's vote be much tighter than expected? good evening. welcome to newsnight, across the uk and around the world. your panel tonight. labour mp olivia blake. andy haldane, former chief economist at the bank of england. and the conservatives' shadow welfare minister danny kruger mp.

just days after the government announced major concessions on welfare reform to its own labour mps, are sir keir starmer's plans in trouble again tonight? nick, the work and pensions secretary made a statment to mps today. how did it land? you could feel the deer it died to make deteriorating atmosphere and i'm not saying that they're going to lose but they're in a different position than they were the beginning of the day and in the sense, they had good news for labour back benches and what i'm announcing today is $2.5 billion by 2029 and 2030. there were a series of interventions that were very difficult for the government first time when the highlight is from doctor murray, marie is massively respected in the labour party because she has a disability and yet she has a doctoral thesis from oxford, massively, this is what she had to say. since april, i have engaged with the government, making it clear i could not

support the proposals on pip. our manifesto committed to championing the rights of disabled people and to the principle of working with disabled people. having no public consultation of these plans excludes the voices of disabled people. this is not just about process, this makes disabled people worse off. the principle of fairness means disabled people have a legitimate expectation to be consulted, and in order to fulfil the equality act's section 149 public sector equality duty. why did department for work and pensions choose not to consult with disabled people on pip proposals, and what will her department do to win back the trust of disabled people? what is the logic of making changes to future richard reeves, the chancellor was sitting there on the front row next to liz kendall and over the weekend, the doctor had a very difficult conversation with the chancellor and liz kendall said to marie, actually we're going to have a co-production with

the government and disability groups with stephen timms, i know you have interviewed him but what a lot of flavour and peace that was where the medic, stephen is going to report and the autumn of 2003 six which means they cannot come into effect until 2027 and this new pip system is coming into the autumn of 2026, how does this work out. what is the logic of making changes to future claimants before finishing the timms review, now co-produced with disabled people? could this lead to not just two tiers but three tiers? those existing claimants, those new claimants who will lose out, and those post-timms review. unease from those who are negotiating with the government last week. we have a new reason from rachel, suggesting around about 35 labour mps supporting that but crucially, rachel is

saying that hundred 38 disability groups have signed up to that and agree with that she is saying. but it's been happening tonight, there's a bit of the cabinet trauma fence going on in the houses of parliament i spoke to one member of the cabinet who said it's a lot better than last week we think were going to be ok by talking to one of the rebels and set liz kendall will need to put in the performance of her life to get there tomorrow and another set i am supporting the government that they thought the atmosphere was not great for the government today in the commons. my did you think the atmosphere was deteriorating? more questions came over the weekend and this was one of the reasons why i did not support the concessions because the first instance i can think of was how they're going to administrate this and i think it is a sense of betrayal about the thames review that that won't come to a closer before the changes can

come in at the galante people are yet again at that and i think as the doctor said, we should disabled peoples voices in the beginning and consulting from the beginning myself we were very closely with sheffield mps we made that very clear right at the beginning of this process. we will vote against because you want to support self welfare, is a shame. problem is, this is not reform, this is just some minor cuts and the now abandoned those and i have a lot of sympathy for what the labour rebels are saying because there hasn't been adequate consultation, they were not achieve real changes in the lives of people they're trying to give benefits, they're trying to take them away. we will oppose tomorrow. all of this receiving of two and a

half billion by 2030, how does it look to you? looks rushed, botched, why not wait for the review went out with the charlie mayfield review? helping disabled people back into working work and ultimately, this may fail and will this help people find gainful employment are not and there doesn't seem to be enough support to make that happen. we will talk more about that and we will hear from the disability minister. the disability minister is sir stephen timms. i asked him how his forthcoming review into the pip assessment process, which the government promised would be a "co-production" with disabled people and groups representing them, could really be such a thing when they've already decided some key points. well, it is clear to us that the current system doesn't work. i think everybody recognises that we still have a lower rate of employment in the uk than we had before the pandemic, we're unique in the g7 in that respect, and this system is a big part

of the reason for that. we're determined to fix it. so we're bringing forward a big programme of investment in employment support. at the moment, 200,000 people out of work on health and disability grounds say they'd love to be in a job, could be in a job today, if they had support to make it possible. we're going to provide that support. we're dealing with the work disincentives in the universal credit system, with the first ever real terms, permanent increase in the standard allowance of universal credit. and we're also addressing the financial sustainability of the personal independence payment benefit while also protecting existing claimants. that's the change that we've made over the last few days. but liz kendall also announced today that the stricter four-point requirement in order to be eligible for pip will be coming in, in november '26, and will affect all future claimants. and that's one of the things that disabled people are really concerned about and want to input to help design that system. if you look at the costs of pip, the year before

the pandemic, it cost the government - in current prices - £12 billion. last year, it cost £22 billion. and as i say, it went up by 2.8 billion per year last year alone. that clearly isn't sustainable. and it is not in the interests of anybody, certainly not in the interests of those who depend on pip, which is a really important... right, so is it a co-production or not? it is going to be a co-production because we will look at the activities that are in the assessment, we will look at the descriptors that are used, and we will look at the points allocated to those descriptors, so, where there are concerns, we can address them, but we will need to make sure that this is a benefit which is financially sustainable into the future. right, ok. well, bearing that in mind, then, so if disabled groups who are at the heart of this review - your words - say, "we don't want future disabled claimants to have their pip taken away," you're not going to listen to them, are you?

i certainly will be listening. i mean, if they... ok - will you act on it? yeah. so, you know, if people say, "that particular descriptor should have a different point allocation to it," then that's something that we can certainly consider. but equally... but what they are going to say is, because we know that from the last three days, sorry to interrupt, is people are saying, "we don't want pip to be cut for future disabled claimants." i think everybody recognises that pip needs to be financially sustainable in the long term. the recent trend definitely has not been financially sustainable. that is in nobody's interests. it does need to be. and disability organisations, i think, recognise the importance of that for the wellbeing of the people who depend on the benefit at the moment. but in the end, you're saying you want fewer disabled claimants in the future to get pip - that's the bottom line. no, we're not saying that. yes, you are, because you want the bill to come down. i'm not saying that.

no, i'm not saying the bill should come down. what i'm saying is the rate of increase needs to be a sustainable increase. my expectation is that the number of people claiming pip will continue to grow, that the costs of it will grow in real terms, but that needs to be sustainable. right. so the rate of increase will be slower, which means fewer people will be getting pip. that's just logical. fewer than would be if no changes were made at all, but that's because we want the benefit to be sustainable, we want it to be there for the long term. and it is definitely in the interests of disabled people that it should be. your department estimates that these welfare savings will push an extra 150,000 people into poverty by the end of the decade. i understand you say that doesn't take into account anyone who might get a job, for example. so if it's 50,000 pushed into poverty or 100,000 pushed into poverty, is that ok with you? i think the net effect of our package will be to reduce poverty, because... you think or you know?

..over time, we will get more and more people into work. so the last labour government, with a thing called the new deal for disabled people, brought down very substantially the disability employment gap, greatly increased the proportion of disabled people in work, and progress on that stalled in 2010. we want to get back on track with delivering that process, making sure that people who at the moment have been trapped outside work for a long time, completely unnecessarily, have been told by the system, "you are not capable of doing any work," which is simply untrue, we want people to have opportunities for employment, to increase their incomes and, as a result, to escape from poverty. right, so are you saying nobody's going to be pushed into poverty by these reforms? i think we're going to have a system which has a much, much better job in supporting people to fulfil their ambitions, to earn a good living for themselves, to do well in the future. and does that mean nobody's pushed into poverty? i don't expect people

to be pushed into poverty as a result of this. i expect new opportunities to open up for people - people who've been denied opportunities for far, far too long. we are recording this at about 6.30 in the evening. we go on air on newsnight at 10.30pm. the vote's tomorrow night. are you going to be forced into further concessions by your own backbenchers between now and then? no, we've got a very strong... no more concessions? no. we've got a very strong package which does the job that's needed. i've been talking to mps today, and i'll no doubt talk to some tomorrow to anyone who wants to discuss what we're planning. i think it's a very strong package now, and i very much hope that parliament will agree to it tomorrow night. no more concessions, that's it? it's a really strong package, in good shape... i can't tell if that means no more concessions, or... well, increasingly, the conversations that i'm having with my parliamentary colleagues, they're agreeing that the package is now right. ok.

you've said a couple of times you "hope" you win this vote tomorrow. could you lose this vote tomorrow? well, i'm not taking anything for granted, and i'm very happy to talk to anyone who wants to discuss it between now and the vote tomorrow. minister, thank you for talking to newsnight. thank you. let's hear more from olivia blake, on friday, the premise was talking about how they were really learning lessons from this, i suppose and call it a debacle now. and listen a lot more to people and are you sure they're going to do that? i really hope so, we have been warning for weeks, not just myself but collects right across the party about her concerns about this and how unworkable it will be and i'm concerned about costs on the nhs services, local authority services, housing services and i don't think that's been taken into consideration in this we've also been coming up with alternative ideas where they could find the money. flooding the idea of the marriage tax

allowance which cost £590 million a year just for being married. surely if we are discussing disability payments we should be looking at policies like that. daniel kruger, the system was created under the last government and the government before that, huge rising claims under watch yes, of course was by the claims are going up up for that. and you did not tackle it. what we did was have real success on the unemployment benefits in the air to the system in 2010 those very chaotic and that a large number of people from many years, decades and unemployment benefits in the construction of universal credit, change the incentives that made work pay and encourage many people who went to work toward nod and work before. it's much harder to manage an increasingly. you acknowledge it is hard to break this bill down. yes and particularly because a large number of the claims are the basis of mental health conditions which are again,

particularly difficult to manage and to assess accurately. since covid-19, the number has gone up hugely and so their right to try to get on top of this may recognise that this system is unsustainable and might take issue with the rebels even though i agree with them about the fact that these reforms are rushed but really, the problem is they do not go far enough we do not really change the system, and exchange community to change much more fundamentally. that's the kind of thing the conservatives have set before me respected 2015 the conservative government said it would cut 12 billion from the welfare bill which is what you promised last summer as well in your manifesto and a 2015., you did not achieve it. it is easy to say, and you cannot just cut people's income. i think the cuts were small in the overall context. nevertheless, you cannot just cut without properly reforming the system, so what we really need is partly employment support, they brought forward in quite a small way some money

for that that is welcome not enough, but more profoundly than that i'm leaving aside welfare, the real issue is on the job site. this government is destroying jobs, this and -- this advising players. the government is saying they should get off benefits and onto work. there is no work for people to go to stop what is that right, andy haldane, there is no work for people to go to? there are vacancies out there but they have fallen for two years. we are fighting unemployment is dropping. it is more than the quantum. we know we need different types of, more flexibility, more occupational health to help people with underlying health conditions to find a way back into work. i don't think even the £1 billion of employment support touch the sides when it comes to that degree of wraparound support, health, training and business need. and

how worried are you about the one in eight young people who have made no contact with a jobs market and are not even in training as well? that is catastrophic. we have 1 million people aged 18-24 who are neither learning nor earning, it's catastrophic, for them individually but for their community and for the our economy, so something very seriously needs to be look at there, not just at age 16 or 18, this can trace right back to getting work into the bloodstream of peoples, i would say, from age 14 onwards. that we have routinely failed to do and out we are counting the cost. olivia blake, do you accept that the raise rate of rise in the bill and number of claimants is not sustainable? that is what you hear minister say, including the prime minister? i think there is an understanding a linear

percentage rise, on and on and on, will not happen. we had a huge oven in covid that hurt pretty girly hard disabled people and did impact people's mental health, for example eating disorders the something me and danny are both passionate about championing, went through the roof during covid, and people still putting together and putting their lives back together. you have seen the graphs of the forecast with the same under the last conservative government as it is under this. it is like that, and this slightly slows the rate of the rise. but cutting peoples benefits is not going to stop the rise that we are seeing. what will help is rebuilding our mental health services, focusing on prevention which later this week the government are going to make a big intervention on that, and also working with employers to be much better at working with disabled people. i know far too many disabled people who have been managed out of the workplace because of their conditions, rather than being supported to stay in work. i've also known a lot of young people, particularly with learning disabilities, who get

training programme after training programme until they hit 25 and there is never any jobs at the end of it. these are the kinds of conversations i want to be having with employers to make sure they are giving people meaningful work, meaningful employment and supporting disabled people by tackling the barriers that we know ourselves exist. can i just zoom out for a moment about andy haldane? as an economist, do you think rachel reeves finding cuts from welfare or pensioners or farmers inheritance tax in order to make sure she sticks to her fiscal rules, is definitely the right thing to do to keep the markets onside? as everyone said, there is a case for welfare reform. and there is a case and for trying to get as many people of the 9.5 million currently economically inactive back into the workforce as possible. but a fiscal first, were doing those things, the likes of which we are now experiencing, is not the right way to do it.

work backwards from jobs and employment, not forward from what we need to balance, so we have got this wrong by putting the fiscal card ahead of employment horse. so would your advice to the chancellor be right now? on the fiscal front? on the back of the changes made to the welfare bill and the back of the u-turn on winter fuel, that will blow a £4 billion whole, relative to expectation a few months ago, roughly half the headroom the government had. we are than in the land of hard choices. prospectively, in the budget, overspending, higher taxes, or a tweak to the rules. of those three invidious choices that i would plump for the third of those. there is a chance to get growth going. ok, so what does that mean in practical terms? cut yourself some slack on those rules. right? create a tolerance for not beating them

on a... no bartering for day-to-day spending by 29 - 30? you i would say, if you are within spitting distance of hitting the rule, that should not necessitate an instant response by raising taxes or cutting spending. ok, and how would the conservatives view that if rachel reeves broke her ironclad fiscal rules? that would be the end of the credibility of the government. they have put a huge amount of weight on this, and i think the markets would not like it, and i must... they are committed, rightly, not to borrowing further. nor should we be raising taxes. we do have to reduce spending, and the way to do that is meaningful welfare reform, but i totally agree, we should not just be thinking about cuts, we should be thinking about changes to the system to grow jobs and support young people into employment. olivia mentioned mental health.

that is where the huge saving potential he is. people with mental health conditions need support and we need more support, but we should take some that budget, putting that into the nhs, into child and adolescent mental health services, to help those young people, not just parking them onto benefits for life, which is what happens at the moment, so we need to invest in services but really reduce the overall spending that is going into the benefits system and that will reduce spending and grow the financial markets. and in terms of this, would you describe this, shambles, debacle, what is your word? i think of a great frustration... where does responsibility lie? the prime minister at the weekend marking his one year in power for labour, the context for the mistakes or grants he has, is it down to him or the chancellor? i am not asking for heads to roll. i am asking

where responsibility lies. i think it is a collective feeling of understanding the depth of feeling on this, and we have people with huge amount of experience in these areas who have the answers, so i think that we need to see better engagement on these issues, and actually work before the policy comes out in grand statements, we need to be focusing on working and really understanding the issues before we come up with policies. so we need to learn. ok. let's have a look at some of the stories on tomorrow's front pages. the guardian says labour bid to woo rebels descent into chaos, on the eve of the welfare vote. the i paper, number 10, a final push to win over rebel and peas ahead of welfare vote. the times, the nhs will prioritise uk doctors and nurses, a ten year plan curbs are driven from overseas. that is the nhs england ten year plan published this week. and the daily express, bbc bosque has to act

now or resign. tim devi, the bbc director general, told to sac those responsible or resign himself over the glastonbury idf chance scandal, a quote from the israel deputy foreign minister. the culture secretary spoke about this in the commons this afternoon. have a listen. this government supports the bbc. we believe it is an important institution. that is why we are so disappointed that this has happened, why we have been so exasperated with the lack of account from the leadership - not just about this but about a previous gaza documentary and a number of other issues as well. when you have one editorial failure, it's something that must be gripped. when you have several, it becomes a problem of leadership. they are very strong words from the culture secretary. where do those words leave tim davey tonight? tim davey is under a

lot of pressure, and it's interesting stuart andrews said to lisa and andy, you spoke to the director general on saturday, are you satisfied the explanation you got? and lisa nandi said, no, i am not, and she expects better answers, and you could tell from lisa nandy's frustration that she is frustrated at the moment, but this government is not wildly keen about the current executive leadership of the bbc. they think, in general, they are very slow to respond to these sorts of things. as you know i spend my life walking the corridors, and that is very much the picture that i have been picking up in recent months from senior members of the government about the current executive leadership of the bbc, and you just saw that coming to a head today. danny kruger? what about tim davey's position, is it weekend? we

need to understand what happened at the weekend. the main thing to say is it is very wrong for this act to take place at all. i think the glastonbury organisers have a case to answer. i am disturbed also they invited kneecap, the band whose name directly glorifies terrorism and violence, so i think there is something culturally amiss at glastonbury. i understand an artist, expression is one thing, but it is nothing to invite people to glorify violence and in this case somebody who led chants: for the death of soldier from the jewish state which directly impacts the security of jewish people here in the uk. i am bothered by that, by the by what happened at the bbc why it was not pulling the plug instantly on the broadcast, the live stream, so it is right the government is asking those questions, i am glad to hear the police are investigating this incident. it really is serious. we cannot dismiss it as kids playing in a field in somerset, this matters a lot. it is about the culture of our country and about the safety of

an besieged minority of jewish people in the uk. it is important to send a strong signal this is not acceptable. olivia blake, how does this matter to you -- how much does matter? i think lisa nandy was right to state they were too slow to act on this in the bbc and i agree we need to protect freedom of speech and that should be protected, but i think clearly having a lifestream of a punk outfit, you are going to have some chants you should be looking out for in that, and it should have been on their radar way before because as a former punk myself, punks are there to disrupt and to be challenging, and i think it is really important that we make sure that there's no protections there for people, whether that is on the sort of media or online media, and anyone calling or invoking filing

should not be... andy haldane? the highlight select revelation of the evening, i have to say, andy haldane, in terms of leadership? the comments were deeply offensive, glastonbury made a big mistake. it has apologised and condemned. the bbc made a big mistake editorially. it has apologised and condemned. let's not, though, and i hope lisa was not doing this, politicise the issue at the leadership level of the bbc. that would be a mistake with our public service broadcaster, and i hope that was not in play. editorial mistakes were made, they will always be made, but we cannot be chopping off people's heads it is criminally when they happen. not up to the culture secretary, up to the bbc --

indiscriminately. the questions lisa nandy is asking are very much within the ofcom framework. in a statement, the bbc said, "the anti-semitic sentiments expressed by bob vylan were utterly unacceptable and have no place on our airwaves. the team were dealing with a live situation but with hindsight we should have pulled the stream during the performance. we regret this did not happen." thank you very much to olivia blake, andy haldane and danny kruger. nick and i are back tomorrow. thanks for your company. see you then.

i'm rajini vaidyanathan in washington and this is bbc world news america. a fragile ceasefire between israel and iran appears to be holding - after donald trump angrily said to visit washington next week. the white house is the priority is to end the war. and this is bbc world news america. israeli air strikes kill dozens of people in gaza, including at a beach front cafe. as israel's prime minister is set to visit washington next week, the white house says the priority is to end the war. the us senate holds a voting marathon on president donald trump's "one big beautiful bill". and police in the uk have launched criminal investigations into two bands that performed at glastonbury this weekend.